C Harris - Where Shadows Dance

He pushed to his feet. “If anything should ever happen to you because of him, I’ll kill him.” He tucked his snuffbox back into his pocket. “Good night, my dear.”

She sat for a time after he had gone, her tea grown cold in her cup, the fire burnt low on the hearth. She’d told her father the truth when she said she didn’t believe Devlin would ever work against him without provocation. But she had no doubt that the day would come when the two men stood once more against each other. And what would she do then, as Jarvis’s daughter and Devlin’s wife?

She pondered the question long after she had retired for the night. But in the end she came no closer to a conclusion.

Later that night, Sebastian sat in one of the worn old chairs beside Gibson’s hearth. He had his head tipped back against the cracked leather upholstery and a brandy in one hand.

It was not his first brandy.

Gibson said, “Is she going to be all right, do you think?”

“Miss Jarvis? Aside from a measure of guilt over the death of her abigail, I think so, yes. She’s a remarkable woman.” And very much her father’s daughter , he thought, although he didn’t say it.

Gibson frowned. “Guilt? Whatever for? The abigail betrayed her.”

“I doubt the abigail knew what those men intended.”

“Probably not.” Gibson took a long drink. “I still can’t believe Miss Jarvis killed all three of them. My God.”

“I offered to take responsibility for the deaths myself, to spare her the unpleasantness and notoriety that will inevitably result. But she would have none of it.”

“I’d like to have seen Lovejoy’s face.”

Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “I think she frightens him.”

“You’re the only man I know whom she doesn’t frighten.”

Sebastian saw no reason to shatter his friend’s illusions.

Gibson said, “There’ll be an inquest, I suppose.”

“Yes. But it will be largely perfunctory.”

They drank in companionable silence for a while, each lost in his own thoughts. Then Sebastian sat forward, his elbows on his knees. “You’ve seen the bodies, Gibson; do you think it’s possible we’re dealing with two killers? One who murdered Kincaid and Ross, and someone working for the French who killed Lindquist, de La Rocque, and Yasmina?”

“It’s possible, yes. But”—Gibson took a deep swallow of his brandy, his lips pursed as he considered this—“why would the French kill Yasmina?”

“Perhaps she became restive and threatened to betray what she was doing.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“The only alternative I can come up with is that we’re talking about three killers ...” Sebastian scrubbed his hands over his face and slumped back. “Oh, bloody hell.”

Gibson stood up, staggering slightly as his weight came down on his peg leg. “Maybe some more brandy will help.”

Wednesday, 29 July

The pounding went on and on, loud and insistent.

It took Sebastian some moments to realize that the pounding in his head was not, in truth, in his head, but the result of a fist beating a lively tattoo against a distant door.

He opened one eye. His gaze traveled from the row of grotesque specimens lining Gibson’s mantel to Gibson’s gently snoring face. The golden light of late morning streamed in through the room’s narrow window. At some time during the night he had decided there was no point in making his way back to Brook Street. But he couldn’t fathom why he hadn’t at least made it from the damned chair to the sofa.

The pounding continued. Where the bloody hell was Mrs. Federico?

He pushed up from the chair, wincing as he straightened his cramped, stiff limbs. Rubbing the back of his neck, he wove his way down the narrow hall to yank open the door. “What do you w—”

He broke off.

Miss Hero Jarvis stood on the doorstep.

His betrothed was, as always, exquisitely turned out in a walking dress of teal silk with medieval sleeves slashed with strips of yellow. She wore pale yellow kid half boots that laced up the back and coordinated nicely with her yellow kid gloves and a teal silk reticule embroidered with tiny primroses. To top it off, she wore a hat trimmed with three peacock feathers. There was nothing in either her appearance or her manner to suggest that she was suffering any ill effects from either yesterday’s kidnapping or its bloody ending. The Jarvis town carriage with its two footmen waited nearby; a very young, very frightened-looking housemaid hovered at her elbow.

“Ah, there you are, my lord,” Miss Jarvis said, brushing past him into the hall. “When I couldn’t find you at Brook Street, I spoke to Sir Henry. He suggested you might be here.”

“Miss Jarvis—”

She went to stand in the doorway to the parlor. Gibson was now snoring gustily. She turned to face Sebastian, her eyes narrowing as she surveyed him critically. “I take it you haven’t heard the news.”

He scrubbed one hand down over his face, painfully conscious of the rasp of his day’s growth of beard. “Good God. Not another murder?”

“What? Oh, no. Nothing like that. My father has been closeted with the Prince and his ministers at Carlton House since dawn. A ship docked this morning from Canada with news that the United States have attacked us. According to the captain, the Americans declared war six weeks ago, on June eighteenth.”

He stared at her, his sleep-fuddled brain slowly beginning to move.

She said, “You do see the implications, do you not? According to what I have been able to discover, the Baltimore Mary sailed from America on June fifth.”

“But that would have been before war was declared. And it’s no use saying they could have heard rumors of war before they sailed, because the rumors have been flying for months now.”

“Yes. But I’ve also discovered that the Baltimore Mary didn’t sail directly to London. It stopped in Bermuda. Now, think about this: Say I’m the captain of an American ship—let’s call it the mystery ship, shall we?—with a cargo bound for Bermuda. Just as I am ready to set sail, word reaches me that Congress has declared war on Britain. I know that if I land in Bermuda after news of the war has reached there, the British colonial officials will confiscate my ship. But I also know that my government is in no hurry to send notice of their war declaration to the British, because Washington is planning an attack on Canada and they want to take the forces there by surprise. So I decide to set sail immediately, hoping to make landfall in Bermuda, unload my cargo, and be gone again before word of the war reaches there.”

“Risky,” said Sebastian. “But tempting. Yes, I can see that. So you’re suggesting—what? That this mystery ship landed at Bermuda and found the Baltimore Mary still there?”

She nodded. “And if so, wouldn’t I—in my role as this unknown American sea captain—warn my fellow compatriots of the outbreak of war?”

He realized suddenly that he was still in his shirtsleeves and scrambled quickly into his coat. Gibson stirred, murmured something, then fell back to sleep.

Sebastian hunted around for his cravat. “It would certainly explain why the Baltimore Mary’ s captain was in such an unnatural rush to unload his cargo and why he sailed again without reloading or even refitting. He wanted to get away before word of the declaration of war reached London.”

She nodded. “What I don’t understand is why knowledge of the declaration of war didn’t leak out. All it would take is one drunken sailor.”

“The ships’ officers wouldn’t have told their crews—not if they could help it. They had too much riding on maintaining the secret.” He went into the kitchen, poured himself an ale, and downed half of it in one long pull. “That’s the link. The link between Kincaid and Ross. As Cox’s agent, Ezekiel Kincaid would immediately have hurried off to the West End to warn his employer of the declaration of war.”